Look at the monitors. What babies these
holidaymakers and suited Pooters are.
My God, if they knew the whole they’d not be here
− but it keeps them out of the Outer Hebrides.
Even these fools fear planes, though. Best they don’t see.
Distraction works. Once they’ve booked a seat
we show them toys to buy, that crap they eat
set up to draw them through ‘Security’.
Ah, what a triumph we’ve created there!
That snaking queue they’re shuffling along
obediently. Then they take off their shoes,
and jewellery, to have them passed as pure ̶
a brilliant stroke by that tame Oxford don!
They know it wards off doom. They daren’t refuse.
Sarah Watkinson is a lifelong scientist and new poet. Her work has recently been published in magazines including Antiphon, Clear Poetry, Ink Sweat and Tears, Pennine Platform, The Rialto, The Stare’s Nest and Well Versed, and has won several prizes in open competitions.